With an immense amount of contending posts online, gaining sustained social media engagement can be problematic.

In just 60 seconds, a whopping 3.3 million fresh contents are being posted on Facebook alone.

That is not to mention the half a million tweets on Twitter and roughly 70,000 new photos uploaded on Instagram.

The statistics give us a context at how trying it is to stand out every time you post amidst the flooding wave of posts and information flowing daily across different digital channels.

What lack of social media engagement means

In the world of social media marketing, low [or the lack of] engagement could mean that you are not connecting with your audience. Your message is not resonating to them. That means, it has no value to them.

If it they do not have perceived value to what you post, what value does your product provide to them? And why bother engaging.

As a marketer that looks up metrics ever so often, it can be discouraging when you look up your data and find that your engagement rate isn’t up to par despite of all your social media efforts.

BUT.

Should it really have to be that way?

7 key steps to boost social media engagement

Understand your target audience | Tip 1

You wouldn’t know exactly what to say if you do not know who you’re talking to. Correct?

And your target users won’t pay attention to you eagerly if they don’t find relevance in what you’re trying to communicate.

Many marketers often miss the point that their audience are composed of people with different interests and behaviors or personas.

Dissecting that to be able to pinpoint what they are in relation to your brand can help you create content with added value to attract them and make them start engaging.

You want them to stop scrolling – and engage. This leads to higher engagement rate as you give them something of worth rather than shoving your brand in their face. Remember, hard selling all the time could be a turnoff to your audience.

Our tip: Create a target persona to understand your audience inorder to be able to speak to them at their level.

How to create a social media client persona for engagement

A social media target persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Making a detailed outlook of this persona will help you create customized and targeted content.

You can create a persona by specifying their demographics, buying behaviors or digital habits. You can go as far as creating different buyers’ persona for every social media platform. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

What I found in almost a decade of experience is that different social media platforms have different users and behavior. That is, also, why I do not recommend cross-posting.

There are several social analytics tools available online to aid you in understanding your target market and create hyper-targeted and engagement-worthy posts on social media for each social media persona.

Once you have created your buyer persona, you will be able to consistently use a social media voice through your engaging posts.

Stephanie Schwab through Social Media Explorer shared these tips on how a persona impacts social media messaging.

Be mindful of the ideal time to post | Tip 2

Although this is affected by quite a few factors, being conscious of the time is important.

It is crucial especially if your prospects are from a variety of locations which have different time zones. Given the unrelenting surge of social media posts every second, your post may be pushed down to oblivion, leaving your company unnoticed by your prospects in just a blink.

Since your goal is to boost social media engagement, that means you literally have to be present by the time they’re online so you get engagement results right away.

According to an industry research conducted this 2018, the best times to post on Facebook (which has approximately 1.4 billion daily active users) are Wednesday at noon and 2PM and Thursday at 1 and 2PM across the globe. The said study also found out that Saturdays have the least engagement within the week, especially evenings and early mornings.

Considering your time of posting may help you gain organic engagement, which in return would result to lead generation and increased ROI when done right.

Put effort on creating good content | Tip 3

Content is usually compromised as we’re busy trying to get all the ROI we want without giving too much effort on what value we can offer.

Some tips which you can do to increase engagement through your content are:

Take advantage of the potential of visual content. With the growing number of users in visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, visual contents are a must-have for every company‘s digital marketing communication kit. Your company is no exception. Your target audience is visual, no matter, the age. That is according to science so get your visual marketing strategy hat on. If you need help, touch base with a company that does social media graphics.Well crafted visual contents are scroll-stoppers. It has been proven to increase social engagement. According to an analysis conducted by Buffer, tweets with corresponding images are 18% more likely to be retweeted and 89% more likely to be “favorited”. Some user-friendly platforms to create visual content are GetStencil, Canva, Studio, Adobe Spark Post to name a few.

Repost old content. It’s true that coming up with new ideas to post every single day is can be mentally draining, right? That’s why reposting old content is helpful. Reposting means republishing your or other page’s old post. You can add something to it to provide new information to attract a new audience or leads who weren’t able to see your posts before. It can be as easy as making your “Top 10 Most Social Media Tips for Business of all time” and many others. Making best use of this strategy could boost your traffic up to 75%, according to Cloohawk.

Use appropriate #hashtags to reach prospects and engage with them. Not using hashtags is a major shortfall for marketers. This trendy social media tool helps your prospects see and notice your content even if they’re not following you.

Run contests and giveaways from time to time. The words “FLASH SALE”, “BUY 1 TAKE 1”, “FREE SHIPPING” and “50% OFF” are in no doubt some of the most eye-catching elements in your social media feed. This strategy creates buzz and makes your prospects/loyal customers crave for more as you unlock several exciting prizes they could dive into at a discounted rate. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want freebies, right?

Ask for feedbacks and reviews | Tip 4

Make your audience feel engaged and valued as you seek their suggestions and give them the freedom to voice out their concerns on how you can improve along the way.

You don’t have to go through sending direct messages to random people via social media channels to ask for a review.

You can just consider asking them to put a brief remark on the comment section to get a direct insight towards a certain content.

Reviews often lead to an improved customer loyalty.

Moreover, your credibility and trust ratings may go high up and can help you achieve business success in the long run.

Remember, your ultimate aim is to increase your ROI.

With good feedback and reviews, clients may easily trust you with their money and purchases, and hopefully, may repeatedly buy from you as you develop a stronger relationship with them.

Collaborate with influencers to share your content | Tip 5

In an article published by Forbes in 2017, it said:

84% of marketers were planning to work with influencers.

Influencers are social personalities who are considered to be thought leaders in the industry and/or niche. They are trendsetters with high levels of social media engagement.

Since they are experts at what they do and are tightly tied to the passion or thought they’re promoting, their contents come across as more sincere and more personal, leading to a higher credibility rate.

Taking advantage of collaborating with influencers to produce content or to expand your business exposure by having them to try your product or service is a must-try for marketers. Their very engaged followers could help you acquire newer audiences that may result to an increased engagement.

If you’re not yet into influencer marketing, it may be time for you to unleash its fullest potential by joining in. Imagine the impact that social media influencers can lend to your brand if you leverage this.

Use analytics tool to monitor progress | Tip 6

There are too many marketers that skip this step. However, we do not recommend NOT doing this. It is like navigating an unfamiliar jungle without a compass. You need a compass or you will get lost.

Knowing what, when and how to improve on your efforts, and pinpointing what to eliminate would make you more confident on taking your next steps towards achieving a higher level of engagement.

Having a business is a risk and seeking the help of an analytics tool wouldn’t hurt

Some free tools available for you are:

Google Analytics: This analytics tool focuses on website traffic gained from other sources, including the different social media platforms. You can also add goals to keep you on-track on the impact of socials towards your target conversion rate.

Twitter Analytics: Has details of what posts get the most engagement daily, monthly and all-time. Also, if you want to see a detailed breakdown of your progress in terms of activities and following, this tool is for you.

Facebook Insights: As you manage your business page, you get to have a full view of the data behind your post’s engagement.

Engage | Tip 7

If you want engagement, initiate engagement. Go out of your way to speak with those whom you want to be part of your circle. It is called “social” media after all.

What Social media marketing engagement is not

Social media engagement is not a one-off activity.

If done consistently, it is the building block to building your online community.

If you run social media ads, social media engagement is one of the touch points of a company’s social selling funnel that can help drive ads cost down.

Most common forms of social media engagement metrics

Since engagement on social media is an important success metric. Take note of these common metrics according to SproutSocial:

Instagram: Likes Received (Including Live and Stories), Comments, Engagement per Media and Most Engaged Hashtags.

LinkedIn: Impressions, Clicks, Likes, Comments and Shares.

Wrap Up!

Don‘t view the post positively because it appeals to you; it should appeal to your audience.

The success of your direct response social media marketing ad could be impacted by high social media engagement through useful and appealing content. It springs from putting your digital consumers’ interests above yours.

The more they see value through your content, the more your voice will stand out amid the din of social media noise.

Ruby Rusine is a Social Media Consultant and is obsessed in on-page SEO by writing optimized blogs and creating SEO-ready websites for businesses. She owns Social Success Marketing. She has over 20 years of combined experience in channel marketing sales, social media marketing, email marketing, customer service management and training. She… View full profile ›